Thursday: 8/8 gr8 r8d m8

No, I’m not sorry for the lame meme. Not much to say about Thursday, though. We 1-shot everything except for G’huun!

MOTHER only had 1 death, to the wind flames. Overall, people were much smarter about using their defensives, and our healers were much more able to boost HP losses after a wall crossing. We had a full raid group once again, so this was an even more impressive feat.

Fetid was our fastest kill yet, at 2:19. Not even enough time for a full DPS rotation!

Vectis is still causing issues with Omega Vector. Nobody died, but people are being too stingy about sharing stacks. If you get over 5 stacks early, step out so someone else can take over. Likewise if you’re under 5, step in! Later we’ll comment about having 10 stacks – again, if you’re over that, step out; if you’re under, step closer. People are creating too many problems for healers by avoiding stacks or letting some player soak too many. Tusker had 48 hits from Omega Vector. A number of people only had 6. This is a problem, especially moving forward into heroic.

Zek’vos was another good run. With only 1 DK, we struggled a bit to get adds in, but coordination on the part of the monks and druids made cleaving the caster adds simple.

Zul was one of our strongest kills yet. We had an excellent balance of add cleave and boss damage, and the boss was moved relatively well in phase 3. Things got a little hectic before and after a tank death, but we took Zul down pretty fast after that.

Mythrax is still suffering a bit from boss-tunneling and lack of interrupts. If you’re not casting any, you’re not coming into Heroics in the future.

G’huun was frustrating. We had a 0%, 36k HP wipe on him. What’s truly frustrating is the number of people – SEVEN – who did not use a healthstone. Imagine 7 people living for an additional, say, 4 seconds. Do you think they could contribute to another 36k damage? Absolutely.

If your name is on the top of that list, but not in the list beneath it, ya done fucked up A-a-ron. It’s a good idea for everyone, regardless of presence on the list, to get yourself something…a weakaura, an addon, I don’t care – that blips that you need to use a healthstone when you go beneath, say, 50% hp. That will get you into the habit of using them routinely.

Thursday Logs

Friday: Heroic Progression

Taloc was the cleanest we’ve had him on heroic. We had very few deaths and everyone moved well together during the elevator phase. However, many people have some low DPS output. Consider whether you should change up your talents or if you’re positioning yourself effectively in the boss fight.

MOTHER was much smoother than last week. We’re starting to get a system down for moving between rooms most effectively and when to start transitioning. People are being smarter with their use of defensives, too. Consider taking extra healing talents, defensive azerite traits, etc, during this boss fight. Staying alive in rooms 1&2 outweighs DPSing!

Since we missed a kill pic last week, enjoy our kill pic this week!

Fetid Devour is a huge DPS check. Our strategy is to only kill 1 of the 2 eggs available at a time. Killing both just wasn’t feasible at this time.  This was also the first time we’ve had to bench underperformers to get through a kill, which should be an eye-opener to a lot of people. However, we managed to get him down within 2 tries after the benches. No kill pic again…whoops.

Zek’voz looks like a VERY doable kill. Instead of clumping and having eyes run out (because people and latency make it unreliable) we spread wide in a crescent for eye beams (cheers to Treeson for the idea!). Then we group back together for adds and other mechanics. We got him down to 10% in 4 pulls and could easily have had a kill if we didn’t bungle add management in the last phase. We raid leads will have to be a bit more aware of Zek’s health and the health of adds so we don’t push phases poorly!

Friday Logs

Raid Changes

Starting October 4th, we’re requiring 355 ilvl for heroics. We may even implement a DPS minimum since frankly, ilvl is easy to acquire given M+ runs, and it’s not a determination of skill. Ideally, you’ll also run with us on normal before heroic, but that’s also not a requirement (yet?).

Speaking of normal, alt runs on Mondays are starting back up. These will be 2 hour runs rather than 3. These will not count against your attendance for Vanguard, but they will count for it, so attending one can only help you. Depending on interest, one of the raid leads might get a lockout so we can skip MOTHER and Taloc and get right into the interesting bosses. Reminder that you’ll see need to follow all the rules & regulations for raiding!

LFR continues to be a success on Saturdays. A lot of people are learning the basic mechanics and we’re all having a good time. Zul trash is easy when you’re this coordinated!

DPS Megapost

If you don’t read this post I might pay Blizzard to delete your characters.

Promotions

Congrats to Neocide, Rwandarousey, and Tusker for making Vanguard!

From Miatreeleafa, one of our new PvP officers:

“This weeks Ministry of Defense Rated Battlegound’s Night was a win. The team ended the night with a 3-2 winning record.

This first match on Temple of Kotmogu began with a swift wipe of the opposing team. The opposing team quickly decided that they had chosen the wrong temple to tango in leaving within just a few minutes following the start of the match.

We struggled the following two matches on Seething Shore and Arathi Basin with following directions of call outs therefore losing unnecessary team fights. The matches were close but we were unable to walk away with a win.

Then, the team rallied on Twin Peaks in a 3-2 comeback victory with improved communication and strong team fight wins sparking a change in momentum.

The night was ended on a overwhelming victory on Temlpe of Kotmogu.

The team is seeing week over week improvement in strategies and communication. Make sure if you are on the team or plan to be that you are running the reporter addon. Also, be on the lookout PvP meeting later this week to discuss future plans. As a side note, we are looking for a dedicated flag carrier who can offspec when needed (Vengence/Havoc Demon Hunter perferred). Please message any PvP officer if interested. Thanks to the great group of guildies that came out this week and if you are interested in joining make sure to check out the PvP page on the guild website for more info.”

 

Hello everyone!

Just a reminder that Grimmshock is collecting donations for materials for our raid feasts. These include: Redtail Loach, Frenzied Fangtooth, and Midnight Salmon, Stringy Loins and Meaty Haunches, amongst other useful feast related items and mats. There is a prize to the top two donators during this week. Please mail your feast donations to Grimmshock.

Also, beginning this week, we start heroic progression in Uldir on Thursday and Friday, with this upcoming Monday being an Alt night/Normal Uldir night. All the raids start at 4pm server. We have an ilevel cutoff for heroic raiding starting at 355. There might be a DPS cutoff upcoming, depending on progress.

One of the most disappointing feelings in WoW raids is thinking that you did really well during a boss fight, and then looking at damage meters and realizing you did half as much damage as others or only parsed at 15%. This is often compounded by being in a raid with people of the same class and spec who perform better than you. It’s disheartening and can make you feel like you’re not adding anything – or even making things worse for the group.

One of the questions we raid leads get asked the most is “How can I improve my DPS?”. There are a lot of general tips we can give you, but it can be a bit overwhelming to try to walk through all at once, especially for those who are only dipping their toes into these resources for the first time. So I’m going to write up a long post detailing different resources that can help you pump those numbers up, and how to use them to your advantage.

Tanks and Healers; I suggest reading through this because some of it will apply to you. But, a lot of it won’t – so feel free to rest easy once again.

I suggest not reading through the post in its entirety at once. Break it into chunks and work on it bit by bit. Come back later for more. Or grab a cup of coffee and dive in, it’s your life.

  • Streamline and Optimize
    • Ability Clicking
    • Keyboard Turning
    • Enemy Targeting
    • Camera Positioning
    • Game Sounds
  • Addons
    • Boss Mods
    • Weakauras
    • Nameplate Auras, KUI Nameplates, etc
    • Simulationcraft
  • Rotation and Opener
    • Openers
    • Standard Rotation
  • Simming
    • Raidbots
    • HeroDamage and Bloodmallet
    • Warcraftlogs
    • Wowanalyzer
  • Class Discords and Websites
    • Discords
    • Class Websites
    • Generic Websites

Continue reading →

A reminder from the Guild’s Head Chef, Grimmshock:

Beginning 12:00 pm, 30 September, we will be starting a week long Feast Materials Gathering event. Send materials to Grimmshock. What we are looking for: Redtail Loach, Frenzied Fangtooth, and Midnight Salmon. Will also accept Stringy Loins and Meaty Haunches. I’ll keep a tally of all donations and announce a winner and runner up 7 October. The prizes are a stingray mount and 10k gold. Winners choice.

Congrats to the following people for their recent promotions within the guild!

Bulborbish has been promoted from Legati to Guild Praetor for all his help during the guilds’ raids, as well as continuing an excellent job with Sunday Funday events!

Lunzzul has been promoted to Warlord, bringing the PVP section of our guild to within equal standing with the guild’s PVE raiding section.

Accordingly, Hoss has been promoted from Legati to Guild Praetor, for his continued help in the PVP area.

Round out the promotions, are bumps up for two new guild officers, Bizatch and Miatreeleafa. Thank you both for helping out our PVP division!

Congratulations to Dangerkor for winning tonight’s Rumble in the Jungle! Tonight’s prize was a companion from the in-game shop, and he chose the new Cap’n Crackers.

If you would like to win an awesome prize like this, join us on Monday and Wednesday nights for our PvP events. Sign up for things on the guild calendar!

((excuse this mess of a screenshot.))

I’ve tweaked a lot over the last several weeks, but none were important enough to warrant their own post. So, here’s a big post on a bunch of little updates!

Website

Homepage Posts

Previously I was having difficulties getting certain post category combinations to show up on the homepage (for example, Announcements and Member Content). I’ve fixed the issue and now any post tagged Announcement will be on the homepage, regardless of other categories.

Raid Progress Widget

If we’ve killed a boss, it has a white skull. If we’ve killed a boss on heroic, it has a yellow skull. If we’ve cleared a tier on a particular difficulty, the entire tier gains that color skull. Mythic skulls will be red. Previously, kills were green text (no skull) and heroic was white skulls. Mythic skulls were pink. I think this is a little clearer!

Raiding Homepage

I’ve clarified the text and added more links in the “Required to Raid” box. This should hopefully point people in the right direction!

I’ve also added a link to Miatreeleafa’s stream, since he showcases our raids every week. If you’re a streamer, talk to me to get your info on the site!

Raid Team Page

Instead of showing off your gear / artifact weapon (like it used to), the Raid Team page now shows off individual progress within the current raid tier. Incomplete tiers are pink, while complete tiers are green.

Raid Attendance Page

If you select “Antorus: The Burning Throne” from the dropdown, you’ll see a list of EVERYONE who has confirmed with a Warlord. These are the only people who are eligible to raid with us!

Selecting “Uldir” will show you a list of people who’ve attended raids and the % of raids they’ve attended since they started coming. Some people have confirmed and not yet attended, thus the discrepancy. For more information on the raid attendance page, check out this post.

PvP Homepage

Lunzzul has added a number of useful boxes to the PvP homepage: a Calendar, Recruitment widget, link to Miatreeleafa’s stream (he PvPs, too!), and a link to Discord.

Discord

Member Roles

There are two new member roles: Streamer and Artist. You can tag yourself as either in the #member-roles channel. These roles are taggable! Check out this post on how to assign roles to yourself.

Raiding Logs

I’ve added a webhook so any log posted to Warcraftlogs will automatically post itself to the channel. I haven’t tested this yet, but we’ll see tomorrow if it works or not!

Diablo Detachment

A number of our members play Diablo 3, and a new season just started, so there’s a channel in the Discord to discuss and organize that.

Vanguard-Gladiator

Because of the way Discord works, some roles are always going to appear before others, even if they’re on equal footing. A member who’s achieved both Vanguard (Raider) and Gladiator (PvPer) by default will show up in the Vanguard listing, even though they’re also a Gladiator. Some people might want to show up as a Gladiator even though they’re also a Vanguard. Unfortunately, this would mean we can’t tag them alongside other Vanguards if we need to. So, I created the Vanguard-Gladiator rank. People who have achieved both Vanguard and Gladiator have earned the right through effort and dedication to appear before both ranks in the list, separate from the rest. This also allows us to tag either “Gladiator” and “Vanguard” and still hit the person who falls into both roles.

Thursday: 7/8 again

Taloc, MOTHER, and Fetid were 1-shots. MOTHER had surprisingly few deaths – the majority of which were to Cleansing Purge and not moving into the last room soon enough. We need to work on moving sooner.

Vectis was interesting. We had a wipe on him, due to Omega Vector stacking. With 3 debuffs, 3 groups makes the most sense. However, some people are moving around too much in Phase 2 and then the debuff stacks. Other times, people within groups are not getting the debuff. Those with heavy stacks need to remember to step out and wait for others to catch up on stacks. If you have a stack in Phase 2, don’t move!

For Zek’voz, we had another early wipe due to eye beams. Make sure not to re-enter the group too soon, and please be careful to move out! Eye Beam does NOT put a debuff on you, so if you’re relying on debuffs to tell you when to move, find another method! Eye Beam is a 2-mistake kick from hereon out.

Zul was 1-shot. Tanks did an EXCELLENT job in phase 3.

Mythrax had a wipe in the beginning of Phase 2. We simply had too many people taking avoidable damage and clumped far too close together. It can be hard with a melee comp, but the boss is very large. Spread as much as you can! And remember, interrupt often. If you’re not on this chart as a DPS, you’re not doing your job.

G’huun was disappointing. We had wipes at 2 and 3 percent. Mostly, people were not paying attention to Gaze. Raid Leads cannot call Gaze for you. You MUST pay attention on your own. Gaze is going to become a 2-mistake kick from hereon out.  Remember also that interrupting is important on G’huun. Again, if you’re not on this chart, you’re not doing your job.

Thursday Logs

Friday: MOTHER is a MFer

G’huun went down about as well as could be expected (minus fumbles with the orb on first pull) on a fresh day.

Taloc was a one-shot, but…there were problems. People continue not to move fast enough out of the group with blood in phase 1. A lot of people are starting to run to the right and then quickly readjusting to run left. That time means they dump blood in the group. I’m not sure why people run right to start. Here is a simple thing to remember: If you get a mechanic on Taloc and you’re not sure what it is, run left to start. If it happens to be Static instead of Blood, that’s ok! Keep running left if you have room. Don’t double back. As long as you run it away from the raid, Static can go in either direction.

MOTHER…whoof. We tried a lot of different ideas with groups here. Ideally, we SHOULD be moving quickly in groups of 4, staggered. (Move 2, pause, 2 more, heal up, repeat.) Unfortunately, people are not paying attention to others’ healthbars and are making this fight much harder than it is, so we’re moving in groups of 3 and 4 with less organization. Always, ALWAYS wait a second behind someone else before running through regardless. When it is your turn to run through, try to be “on deck” as much as you can (barring mechanics like laser walls). I know we like to avoid running through during winds, but unfortunately, winds may end up being one of the cleaner times we get to run through in the future.

DPS is less important than surviving. I will repeat this: DPS is less important than surviving. If you need to run to the far end of the room away from the fire in order to survive winds and dodge mechanics successfully, do it. Getting an extra swing or two on the boss but dying to fire or her frontal because you were trying to minmax won’t be doing anybody any favors. We need you alive for room 3!

Save your movement mechanics and defensives for when you need to cross between rooms. Especially between rooms 2 and 3. You may be in a group that has to book it from the far side of Room 2 to a safe spot in Room 3 with laser ceiling openings. Use movement mechanics to get across as quickly as possible so we don’t wind up with groups stuck behind.

We “killed” MOTHER, but didn’t get a photo with her. Guess that means we’ll do it again this week for a new photo op!

Friday Logs

TLDR Parse Interpretation

I found this chart on Reddit and shared it in the Raiding Discussion channel, but am resharing it here. This is an easy break down of your at a glance parse numbers when reading logs.

(substitute Legendary for Azerite and you get the idea)

If normally your overall is less than Blue and your ilvl is less than Purple, chances are you have things you can improve. Some of it’s gear / stat priority, some of it’s rotation. Check out this guide to see what the best of your class and spec are doing and see what you can do to improve!

Congratulations to the following people for attending 5 raids and receiving Vanguard status for the first time:

Miatreeleafa
Nighteld

Congratulations to the following members for maintaining Vanguard status from Legion:

Bellelina
Corignis
Harmesi
Treeson

These fine folks have earned additional gold repair bills from the guild bank and access to Vanguard – only access tabs. If you’re curious if you’re close to achieving Vanguard status, you can check on the Raid Attendance page!

In addition, we’d like to congratulate Miatreeleafa for being granted Twitch Affiliate status! This grants him the ability to receive subscribers, custom emotes, cheers, and other benefits. As a regular streamer of both our Raids and PvP nights, we’re happy to see him continue to grow! You can follow him and watch the streams at https://www.twitch.tv/nfbprototype.